Liberia's police have set fire to stalls in order to enforce a new ban on street trading, market traders say. The traders said they saw police officers burn their stalls in the early hours of the morning in the eastern Paynesville district of the capital. The fire came shortly after new police chief Beatrice Munnah Sieh toured the area as the ban came into effect. The ban is supposed to ease congestion in Monrovia, where thousands of people fled during 14 years of civil war. There are no reports of any injuries in the fires, as the fires were started during the night. The BBC's Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia says traders are angry at the new ban but there have been no reports of resistance to it. The campaign aims to end traffic chaos in especially the busy Paynesville district, where traders come from other parts of Liberia to do business with those in the capital. ... http://news.bbc.co.uk

A witness called by defense attorneys trying to spare the life of confessed Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui portrayed him to the jury Monday as no stranger to violence and instability. Jan Vogelsang, a clinical social worker testifying for the defense, said Moussaoui was in and out of orphanages the first six years of his life. She said that based on her assessment, he also came from a broken home with physical violence and had a long history of mental illness in his family. Vogelsang said Moussaoui's mother was beaten throughout her pregnancies including six to whom she gave birth prior to Moussaoui and was hospitalized three weeks before Moussaoui's birth. His mother, Aicha el-Wafi, was put into a convalescent home for four months after she gave birth to Zacarias, who was put into an orphanage. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/wireStory?id=1850731&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Canadian authorities have confirmed a new case of mad cow disease - in the western province of British Columbia. It is the country's fifth native-born case and the second this year. Food inspection authorities said the finding in the Fraser Valley dairy cow did not endanger the public as no infected part entered the food chain. Scientists believe humans can contract a deadly brain-wasting disease by consuming beef products from cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Canadian health authorities said in a statement: "This finding does not affect the safety of Canadian beef. "Tissues in which BSE is known to concentrate in infected animals are removed from all cattle slaughtered in Canada for domestic and international human consumption." ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4914926.stm

Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff discusses the dangers of unbridled capitalism, the greed of corporate CEOs and a fundamental problem with the United States economy. SPIEGEL: Professor Rogoff, the US economy is surging forward, while President Bush celebrates high growth rates. But most Americans believe they are living in a recession. Who is right?Rogoff: I too have asked myself whether people have gone crazy. But the fact is that the share of wages in total growth is shrinking.SPIEGEL: In other words, most people are not benefiting from the recovery and are justifiably disappointed?Rogoff: The working population's share of national income remained constant for 100 years. That's why Marx's theory that only capitalists benefit from capitalism and workers are exploited was completely wrong. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Workers earned more as economies grew.SPIEGEL: Is this no longer true?...http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,411543,00.html

About 50 insurgents mounted a brazen attack on Iraqi forces in Baghdad on Monday, prompting U.S. troops to provide support in a battle that lasted seven hours, a U.S. military spokesman said.The guerrillas attacked Iraqi forces in the mostly Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya in northern Baghdad overnight. Five rebels were killed and one member of the Iraqi forces was wounded. There were no U.S. casualties, said the spokesman."It was quite a battle. It lasted seven hours," he said.While insurgents mount such attacks in their strongholds in western Anbar province, they are rare in the Iraqi capital.The bold attack raises fresh questions about security in the capital as Iraqi leaders struggle to form a unity government they hope can avert a sectarian civil war....http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/GEO722227.htm

A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up near a fast food restaurant in a bustling commercial area of Tel Aviv during the Jewish holiday of Passover on Monday, killing himself and nine other people and wounding at least 49 others, including several seriously, police and medics said. A security guard posted outside the restaurant, which had been the target of a previous suicide bombing last January, prevented the bomber from entering the building, police said. The bombing appeared to set the stage for a showdown between Israel and the Palestinians' new Hamas rulers, who called the attack a legitimate response to Israeli "aggression." Israel said it held Hamas ultimately responsible, even though a different militant group, Islamic Jihad, said it carried out the bombing. ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/17/world/main1501289.shtml?source=RSS&attr=World_1501289